How to improve muscle mass

For bodybuilders, increasing muscle mass is crucial, but what is this exactly and how can you achieve more muscle?

Quite simply, muscle mass is the weight of your muscles. Measured in pounds or kilograms, muscle mass includes smooth and skeletal muscles and water in the muscles.

Muscle mass isn’t related to body fat, as the latter refers to how much fat your body holds. However, when you’re building muscle mass, your body is burning fat and energy. The more you increase your muscle mass, the higher your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, which is essential for assisting in weight loss.

There are lots of different ways you can gain muscle mass, but it’s important to remember that how big an increase you’ll make can depend upon your age, gender, genetics and current fitness levels. Always focus on muscle groups evenly when exercising, so that you don’t create any imbalance in muscle growth that could cause one group of muscles to take the strain over another group.

Eat a protein-rich diet

Hitting the gym is just part of the story if you want to boost your muscle mass; you need to focus on what you eat, too, to reap the benefits. Choose a healthy diet rich in protein, as this nutrient is the cornerstone for building muscles. Chicken, lean red meat, beans, nuts and fish are excellent sources of protein.

Consume extra calories

If you’re not taking in enough calories, you’ll struggle to increase your muscle mass, so get to know how many calories you need by working out your basal metabolic rate, and consume more than this. Opt for calories from quality sources of food, such as wholegrains, healthy fats and lean cuts of meat, and eat a varied diet. Avoid junk food, as this will only lead to fat gain and not muscle gain. Eating straight after a workout session has also been shown to benefit muscles as nutrients are more likely to be directed towards growth than fat storage.

Stay hydrated

Water gives muscles their pump, so it stands to reason that if you want to see your muscles getting bigger, you need to stay hydrated.

Rest and sleep

Muscles need a pounding to pump them up, but allowing them to rest is equally as important. During rest, muscles can repair themselves from any damage, and this is the time when growth occurs. As well as fitting in rest days between training, aim for good quality sleep each night to aid muscle growth.

One way to assess if you’ve increased your muscle mass is to measure your muscles. A body composition monitor lets you measure muscle and body fat levels, so you can adjust calorie intake accordingly. Using such a monitor also ensures you avoid any muscle gain imbalances from occurring.

Avoid jumping on standard weight scales to monitor muscle mass levels, as these can’t differentiate between muscle and fat gain. Consider measuring key muscles with a tape measure once a fortnight, but don’t worry if this fluctuates slightly from one week to the next, as muscle gain doesn’t always follow a uniform pattern.

Even with these measures, you might still want an extra helping hand to get those muscles pumped and primed, and this is where Worldwide Anabolics can help with its full range of genuine steroid products.